Belarus is located here:
It used to be part of the Soviet Union and is considered by many to be a dictatorship. So that's fun.
Book summary:
Banned in Belarus two days after it was published, Paranoia is a thriller, a love story, and a harrowing journey into one of the world’s last closed societies. The book never mentions Belarus or its capital, Minsk, but the setting is unmistakable. In his tragicomic prefatory remarks, author Victor Martinovich all but acknowledges the inevitable comparison: "There is no more need to invent ‘1984’: just look around." The state has so penetrated all areas of life—scrutinizing even errant scraps of paper and utterances between lovers—that he must "enjoin readers not to read this book." But for those who do, Paranoia is a timeless story of doomed romance between a young man, Anatoly, and a mysterious young woman he notices at a café. Their whirlwind romance draws Anatoly into a world of privilege and danger, as he discovers that the third party in their love triangle is the omnipotent and omniscient head of state security. A heart-pounding tale of love, murder, and betrayal, Paranoia will appeal to fans of political thrillers. It also offers insight into the frightful workings of a contemporary totalitarian state. Historian Timothy Snyder’s helpful foreword makes explicit, for interested readers, the parallels between politics in Belarus and the rest of the Eastern European region.
It's also worth noting the "description" on the back of the book:
"All the events related herein are fictional: the protagonists have never existed in any reality other than that of the present text. Any unsanctioned comparisons with historical figures or persons alive today may be qualified as a criminal offense punishable under international and national law. To avoid unintentionally committing acts prosecutable (Google says that's not a word) under the Penal Code, the author--fully aware that, essentially, he should never have written it in the first place--enjoins the reader not to read this book."
Where to start with this one? When looking for Belarus, I was stuck between two books: this one and one that was more factual. I kept getting really excited about the description for this one though, so I went with it. Let me start by confessing that I didn't read the foreward (Google strikes again with that one. Either spell check is going crazy or I am). I rarely read them, and I'm kind of glad I didn't in this case. Books like this one (and 1984) are compelling, but they freak me out to think of that as reality. Like panic attack freak out. Part of me wants to know how close this book is to real life Belarus, and part of me is a scared little girl that wants to shut away all the bad stuff.
So I liked this book just as much as I thought I would. There should have been a disclaimer though...the first line should have been "This book does not have a happy ending." I mean at a certain point you know that it won't, but the love story in there makes you hopeful. There were a few points that really caught me, that I want to point out:
There's a passage about the paranoia: "Sometimes things disappear at home, too. Not very important things but like...gadgets. A postcard from somebody. Or a shoehorn. It's a weird kind of awareness. An awareness of some sort of presence." It reminded me of a conversation I had with Diplomat Sister once about serving the US in communist countries. She said she knew people that did it and they would come home and the police or whomever would have been in their home. They would do things like use the toilet and not flush it...or I assume move/take small things like that. They wanted you to know that they'd been there, that they had access to you and your home and your things. It's such an eerie thought. But I guess that's the authoritarian government.
Next is a silly thing: pelmeni meat dumplings! He mentions them a couple of times and it kept making me smile because there's a pelmeni place in little Juneau! I had them for the first time a few weeks ago. Everybody said they're amazing drunk food; they weren't lying.
The last thing I want to point out about this book is that Martinovich had such rich descriptions. Here's one that I absolutely loved: "Then Bach diminished and faded like the last Gothic cross, like a glint of light in a stained-glass window, and Chopin began. He was like his name. His music bubbled with the foam of champagne spilling from a bottle, surging and flowing from side to side across the stage." I could actually picture the Chopin music; it was such a beautiful description. I could feel it. Other descriptions and thoughts were almost dizzy; almost like the paranoia was setting in for me.
Anyone who likes political thrillers should read this. It's amazing and he's such a vivid, deep writer. Just don't think to much about the reality of it.
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